


trust takes time (have we got any to spare?)

by OnyxSphynx



Series: newmann one-shots [90]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mild Angst, but like. mild angst over the uncertainty in canon of the war ending, i mean we know it's a happy ending bc like. it's canon-compliant (with pacrim NOT pru), it's..............something i guess lol, newt learning how to gain trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-03 09:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20263036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphynx/pseuds/OnyxSphynx
Summary: Newt—he'd never meant to hurt Hermann; but he had, anyway.Still, amazingly, there's hope to be had.





	trust takes time (have we got any to spare?)

**Author's Note:**

> anon asked: ""There was an undercurrent of feeling behind his easy smile: Resignation. He didn’t trust him not to hurt him, he’d just accepted it as the cost of being around him.""

Newt doesn’t _mean_ to hurt him, really, he doesn’t; but at the end of the day, the truth is, that’s exactly what he does: mocking words about Hermann’s appearance, about his character, about his work, spilling forth; vaguely, he feels horrified; knows, later, he’ll regret is, but all he’s got now is a vicious sense of _glee._

Hermann’s dumbstruck—for a moment.

And then he’s biting right back, tearing Newt to shreds, and, oh, it feels so _good._

And then, when it’s over, he comforts himself with the fact that Hermann _did_ snap back; tells himself it was doomed to end badly regardless. So he barrels on—that’s what he does best, after all; be an unstoppable force.

“Or I’m dead,” he says, into the recorder, running high and half-disassociating at this point, barely aware that the words he’s saying aren’t just the train of thought in his head, “in which case, hah, I _still_ win…sort of.”

That nearly brings him up short—it’s not that he _fears_ death; he doesn’t. But he’s never…been _this_ close to it before. “It’s like the prologue-y bit in White Fang, where the one dude’s narrating,” he murmurs, aloud, “you know the one, Hermann, about noticing the tendons in his hands…”

He might be delirious, slightly; Hermann’s not there, he _knows _that, but still—he _is._

_Breathe,_ he reminds himself. “Kaiju-human Drift initiation in…three…two…one—”

The nervousness he thought he’d banished races up his spine, sends what feels like jolts of electricity through his blood, his brain, _our brain,_ oh, the connection _hurts,_ rips through him as he’s linked to the collective, and yet, somehow, it feels _right—_

_Heat-death,_ he thinks, vaguely, in a mind and voice not quite his own.

And then his head is hitting the ground, the pain barely-registered; Hermann’s gripping him, tightly, cradling his head, and Newt’s hands scrabble weakly for purchase without success; he falls into the dark.

* * *

He hands Newt the glass, silently; watches as Newt struggles to drink, water sloshing out as his knee jitters, hands shaking; spills onto his shirt, sticks it against his skin, and yet, Newt can’t bring himself to care.

Absently, he wipes away the blood trickling down from his nose, again; notes that Hermann flinches.

“Are you quite alright, Newton?” Hermann asks, awkwardly, and Newt nods. Hermann offers him a smile, and then, like a flash of lightning’s struck him, Newt thinks—

_Oh._

He’s _hurt_ Hermann.

The tape is there on the counter; Hermann must have listened to it, afterwards, during the hazy time when Newt was shivering in the chair after Hermann managed to get him up off of the ground.

Hermann is smiling, happy, but—

There’s an undercurrent of feeling behind his easy smile: resignation. He doesn’t trust him not to hurt him, he’s just accepted it as the cost of being around him.

The realisation has Newt freezing mid-blink; because, at the end of it all—

Hermann _doesn’t_ trust him.

And—

Well, Newt can hardly blame him.

“Do you need more water?” Hermann asks.

Newt licks his lips—dry and cracking, still. “No,” he says, flatly. He means to say _thank you._ The words stick in his throat. Hermann’s smile drops, replaced by the familiar half-frown.

“Alright, then,” he huffs, “I’m going to retrieve Marshal Pentecost.”

The _click, click, click,_ of his cane against the floor sounds angry as he leaves. Newt closes his eyes and tries to see black instead of a riot of sensory data from alien minds projected against the insides of his eyelids.

And then the Marshal’s there, and he’s _listening_ to Newt, finally, _finally,_ and that almost makes up for the way that his heart feels like it’s been exposed to dry ice.

* * *

“I’ll go _with_ you,” Hermann says, meeting his gaze, and Newt falters; nearly drops the cables he’s holding.

“You’d do that for me?” he squeaks, and then, quickly, “or—_with_me?” because this cannot be real; Hermann doesn’t trust him, and the fucking _foundation_ for Drift compatibility is trust, is _love,_ for fuck’s sake, and this—whatever they have, with the late-night necking and sometimes fucking, _this_ is not either.

And yet—

Maybe, maybe—he _wants_ it to be. He wants to gain Hermann’s trust, _properly,_ whatever that takes, whatever that _means._

So he looks back at the cables in his hands, and says, “I can rig up a second pons headset,” and tries not to grin, because this—_them_—it’s fucking broken but it’s still _working,_ somehow, like when you plug the wrong numbers into the wrong equation and still get the right _damn_ answer, because—

Because sometimes, _sometimes,_ the universe grants miracles.

And Newt isn’t going to throw his away.

(The Drift, this time, feels less like _pain_ and more like understanding; this time, mutual.

As they sit in the military helicopter, the floor beneath them shaking, Hermann says, “Trust is built on open dialogue.”

Newt thinks that’s probably true. “I’m not very good at it, though,” he points out.

Hermann scowls at him, without much rancour. “If we succeed , you’ll have plenty of time to practice,” he reminds Newt, and doesn’t protest when Newt’s hand slips into his own when the helicopter gives a particularly violent shudder.

_Progress,_ Newt thinks. Admittedly, nonlinear.)

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at [pacificrimdyke](https://pacificrimdyke.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
